STAMPS AND PENS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3133, 19 June 1942, Page 3

STAMPS AND PENS

WAYS OF ECONOMISING CONCESSIONS TO WAR WORK More than. 20,000,000 postage stamps a day are being turned out, Sundays excepted, by Britain’s printers, or a total of 6,500,000,000 through the year.

They are done on a special watermarked paper—each reign has its own watermark —the makers of which have been supplying paper for Bank of England notes for upwards of 200 years. All stamps up to and including the 3d are now printed in lighter shades, which means a saving of considerable quantities of dyestuffs to help the war effort, particularly in those countries which rely on British manufacturers for their industrial dyes. Writing Mare Letters Now Although circulars from mail order houses, moneylenders, bookmakers and football promoters are all refused in wartime, people are writing more letters than ever they did. They are finding it difficult to buy fountain pens to write them with. Instead of fountain-pens, the makers are turning out high-precision instruments and parts of munitions. The output has not been entirely stopped and it has not been much affected by the present limitation of rubber, as three tons of it gives enough ink sacs for 5,000,000 pens. Coloured and fancy pens, however, are slowly disappearing and soon a standardised black pen will be all that is to be had. More than half of the supply now available is going to the troops overseas.